AUBURN – With 10 years of experience as an administrative assistant for a company with more than 200 employees, Calvin Tidswell seemed too qualified to be a convenience store clerk.

But, as Tidswell tells it, the manager of Cumberland Farms wasn’t going to let that stop her.

After reviewing his two-page resume and briefly interviewing him in the Auburn store, she told him that he seemed perfect for the job. She asked when he could start.

Tidswell paused.

“There is something that I should tell you,” he said. “I am on federal supervised release.”

The woman gasped.

“We don’t hire ex-convicts,” she said. “This interview is terminated.”

It is not illegal to refuse to hire someone because they have a criminal background. That leaves Tidswell and other ex-convicts in a difficult spot, especially at times when jobs are scarce.

For some, employment experts say, it makes it harder to resist theft, drug-trafficking and other money-making crimes. Others lose their driver’s licenses while they are in prison and they have to pay fines before they get them back.

“They need transportation to find a job. Ironically, they can’t pay those fines until they have a job,” said Becky Boober, the executive director of the Maine Re-Entry Network, a program that helps inmates being released from state prison.

While Tidswell was in prison, he met many inmates who deliberately broke the law so they would be sent back to prison where they didn’t have to worry about paying rent and buying groceries.

“In prison, you know what is going to happen every day. You know that you are going to get fed, that your laundry will get done,” Tidswell said, sitting at the kitchen table in his mother’s apartment in Auburn.

As Tidswell got up to leave Cumberland Farms, dressed in his sport coat, khaki pants and Rockport shoes, the store manager smiled and said, “But please, feel free to shop here.”

It was a refreshing response for Tidswell. Most employers do not mention his criminal history when they turn him down.

But he knows that is why his 75-year-old mother still pays for his food, clothes and movie tickets.

Tidswell was 32 years old when he was convicted in 1990 of possessing cocaine with the intent to distribute it. He served his 12-year sentence in three federal prisons.

The government requires federal inmates to work while serving their time. Tidswell, a high school dropout who got by working odd jobs on his family’s farm, welcomed the structured routine. It helped pass the time.

He began his sentence in Indiana, where he worked as a statistician for the prison’s baseball league. In Bradford, Pa., he got a job as the personal assistant of one of the prison’s two chaplains. When he was transferred to Minersville, Pa., he was hired as administrative assistant for the maintenance department.

A recommendation from his supervisor in that position landed him a job with Unicor, an industry within the federal prison system that manufactures everything from military blankets to silverware used by government agencies.

Every morning for nearly 10 years, Tidswell reported to his office inside the Unicor factory. He was responsible for the schedules and payrolls of more than 200 workers, he filed monthly production reports and he served as liaison between the workers and the managers.

At the height of his prison employment, he was making $1.60 an hour.

He used part of the money to buy special orders of double-dipped fried chicken and fresh cantaloupe. He sent the rest to his mother to put in the bank. He knew he would need it when he got out.

Polite letters

When Tidswell walked out of prison on Sept. 17, 2002, carrying only a backpack stuffed with sweat pants, sweatshirts, sneakers and a bar of soap, he was sure that he would have a job within a month.

He had letters of recommendation from his former supervisors. He had already written a draft of his resume and he had saved enough money to buy a used car so he could drive to interviews.

“I came out really expecting to get a job within 30 days,” he said. “That didn’t happen.”

Since his release, Tidswell has sent his resume to more than 200 companies throughout Maine. He has gone on dozens of interviews.

Most employers never get back to him. Those who do usually send polite letters, letting him know, “Your skills and qualifications are very impressive, but we have decided to pursue other applicants.”

Not all employers ask if he has a criminal record. But Tidswell never leaves an interview without mentioning that he is on federal probation.

“I feel almost obligated to let them know about my past,” he said.

He is using the right approach, according to local employment experts. It is better, they said, for him to be upfront than to risk having his employer find out about his past after he’s been hired.

Still, his honesty comes with a price.

“In this day and age, employers get so many applications, they don’t have to take the chances involved with hiring ex-convicts,” said Mary LaFontaine, a training and education coordinator in Lewiston.

Difficult times

In addition to the training and employment opportunities available in prison, state and federal programs exist to help inmates when they are released.

Tax incentives are available for companies that hire ex-convicts, and some inmates are eligible for special insurance bonds that would immediately reimburse a company if the ex-convict steals money or causes any problems.

But, even with those incentives, many employers do not want to take the risk.

“Particularly in times of economic downturn, the job market is very, very difficult for people with criminal records,” Boober said.

Tidswell understands why companies are reluctant to hire him.

His resume, in which he identifies his former employer as the U.S. Government, is two pages long. His criminal record is three.

It dates back to 1978. Tisdwell was 18 when he went to the Maine State Prison for the first time for stealing a car and getting in an accident that killed his friend. He pleaded guilty and was locked up for two years.

Dealing drugs

During his first stint in state prison, Tidswell got his GED. He worked in the factory making license plates, then he got a job as the head of the vehicle maintenance crew.

He also made friends with drug dealers, thieves and other career criminals.

When he got out, he returned to his parents’ farm in Livermore, opened an arcade on Main Street and started dealing marijuana. Although he was charged with various misdemeanors, he managed to stay out of jail for six years.

In 1986, he was sent back to prison for another two years for assaulting a police officer who was attempting to break up a party at a local sand pit.

When he got out in 1988, Tidswell tried to get a job at International Paper and a few other companies. When that didn’t work, he started dealing cocaine.

He was busted in the fall of 1989 after selling drugs to an undercover cop. He pleaded guilty because he knew he was wrong.

Twelve years later, he credits the federal prison system for saving his life by forcing him to be patient.

“I did a lot of dumb things when I was young,” he said. “But I’ve matured. I’ve aged. I understand what I want in life. I just want what the basic person wants.”

He wants a job – nothing fancy, just something that would allow him to pay rent, see an occasional movie and pull his own money from his wallet when he stops in Cumberland Farms for a soda or a pack of gum.

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